Target Stores has introduced a new Visa card that promises to increase the company’s Take Charge of Education contributions substantially, as schools will receive 1 percent of customers’ Target purchases, as well as 0.5 percent of all other purchases made with the card at any of Visa’s 18 million merchants worldwide.

Target currently is piloting its Visa card in three test markets. Results of the pilot program will be reviewed in the spring of 2001 to determine whether the company will pursue a national implementation.

Target successfully launched its own in-store credit card, the Target Guest Card, in 1995. In 1997, the company introduced its Take Charge of Education (TCOE) initiative, through which Target contributes 1 percent of a customer’s Guest Card purchases to a K-12 school of that customer’s choice. TCOE has generated more than $27 million for schools across the country in three years.

http://www.target.com/TargetGroup/community/community_drill_fundraising.jhtml